Katie Katie Parsons is the creator of Mumbling Mommy and is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist. She works from her home office on the east coast of Florida. Most often she writes about life in a combined family of five children and what it's like being a full time work-from-home parent. Feel free to pitch guest post ideas or just drop her a line at katie@mumblingmommy.com.

I received an email about a month ago about a new site for online ticketing called ScoreBig. The site bills itself as having tickets for up to 60 percent off, every day, for everything from musical acts to amusement parks. I said I’d give it a look, and if I found tickets I liked, would use a special promotion code to purchase them. It turned out saving me over $100 — between the promo code and the price off of face value of the tickets I purchased — so let’s just say I WILL be using ScoreBig again. Just for signing up, I received a “thank you” email with a promo code for $10 off my first purchase as well, which I will save for next time.

First — the tickets. I looked through some of the highlighted offers for my area, including SeaWorld/Aquatica, LEGOLAND and even “Ghost: The Musical” tickets and was impressed with the wide selection of dates available. In the end, though, I was able to score great seats for a Miami Marlins home game in June and I printed out the confirmation code and gave it to my husband for his birthday (now, he tells me, he just needs to just figure out WHO to take to the game….).

ScoreBig is different from other ticketing sites because prices are not listed. Instead, users make an offer on tickets that is either accepted or declined. Upon acceptance, the credit card of the user is charged and the tickets are purchased immediately.

You can choose your seats before making your official offer. You type in your zip code to be directed to deals in your area. You are not in a bidding war with other users; rather, the site determines if the offer is worth the price of selling the tickets to you based on availability and demand. ScoreBig DOES have a guarantee that you will never pay more than the face value of the ticket (plus processing fees) so there are some built-in protections there. There are also no added processing fees on the site (you pay only what you bid) and no delivery fees.
When I went to bid on the tickets, a meter let me know the likelihood of my bid being accepted. My bid was somewhere in the high-middle and was accepted. Of course then I wished I had started bidding lower (just a little advice) but I also really wanted those exact tickets so it worked out.

The only downside I noticed was that if it wasn’t for my proximity to Orlando (about an hour away), I would not have had many choices for tickets. Our local performing arts center, that regularly hosts Broadway shows and big musical names, had no listings on the site. I was also unable to find some of the specific Marlins baseball games I wanted to attend (likely sold out already, or simply premium games) so it did take some searching to find something I truly wanted to buy. Since the site recently launched, however, I assume it will have more to offer users over time.

You should give the site a glance — let me know if you find some great deals in your area.

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Category: Saving Money

Tags: discount tickets